1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a fascia structure for folding doors, particularly for bifold doors, and to a bifold door assembly or hardware kit including such a fascia.
2. Review of the Art
Unlike conventional side hinged single panel doors, bifold doors have two door panels hinged to each other at adjacent vertical edges, the other vertical edges of the panels being respectively supported by pivot members adjacent a jamb of a doorway and guided by a track for movement across the doorway. To open bifold doors, one pushes or pulls the two hinged door panels. The two panels can be arranged to fold in either direction, but closet doors normally fold outwards for space reasons. Doorways in which bifold doors are mounted are rarely completely rectangular because of construction problems. Although the position of the doors can be adjusted by means of screws or other adjustments associated with the pivot brackets, it is frequently impossible to align the doors in the opening without leaving an unsightly tapering gap at either the top or sides of the door. With other types of door, this problem can be overcome by the use of a trim unit or valance, fitted to the door frame to screen the unsightly gap that frequently occurs particularly between the top of a door and its frame. Such units are exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,072, issued Mar. 29, 1977 to William J. Schumacher et al, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,427, issued Sep. 16, 1980 to John Buchner. However, such a trim unit cannot be mounted to a door frame in the path of the folding motion of bifold doors since it would interfere with the folding action of the door, which is projected outwardly from the plane of door when in a closed position by a considerable distance, comparable to the width of a door panel.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,577,884 (Garubo) discloses an L-shaped, hinged valance for a multipanel folding door in which the vertical stem of the L-shape provides a valance when the door is closed, and the valance hinges outwardly so that the initially horizontal stem of the L-shape provides a valance as the panels turn about their vertical axes. Such an arrangement can only accommodate a very limited projection of the door panels and cannot thus be used with a bifold door.
An object of this invention is to provide a fascia structure for bifold doors, which will not interfere with folding motion of the doors.